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WAR and More (...what is it good for)
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 3, 2018 8:05:43 GMT -5
I eagerly await 2048 to have someone tell me who the best player on this year’s team is. Same, but unironically.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 3, 2018 9:10:33 GMT -5
Dewey was not “better” than Rice. He had a longer career, yes. But Rice in his prime was a machine. No retrospective statistic will change what I saw with my own eyes. Don Sutton has nearly 20 more WAR than Sandy Koufax... but he certainly wasn’t better. None of this diminishes Evans, and I am not against him being in the HOF. At the same time, it is tough for me (a small HOF advocate) to let in guys who were never really “the man” on their own team (especially in a relative power position). Edit: To my point: Rice’s career was basically 1975-1986. In that span, he averaged 29 HRs 106 RBIs .304/.356/.520. Evans never had a sustained period of that quality. Evans had two big edges — the first is huge: he was a better defender (by a huge amount). The second is he walked a lot. The thing is, what you saw with your own eyes is not what you now remember. You definitely saw Rice cost his team 42 runs by hitting into double plays, while Dewey, in a longer career, cost them 6. You definitely saw that, of the 11 most dramatic, game-changing home runs in their combined careers (as measured by Win Probability Added), Dewey had #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, and #11. You ought to remember that, too.
If you watched both careers, it shouldn't surprise you that their ten best seasons by WPA, a purely offensive stat go: Evans ('81 prorated to 135 games or more), Rice, Evans, Rice, Evans, Rice, Evans, Evans, Evans, Evans. There's no number N where Rice's N best seasons were more valuable offensively than Evans' N best seasons, when you include clutch, and once N hits 4 or more the gap gets really big. You definitely saw Rice put up an OPS+ of 86 relative to his own career with 2 outs and RISP, while Evans had 105, and Rice put up 86 late and close and Evans 95. I'm guessing you remember how relatively mediocre a clutch hitter Rice was, consistently, his whole career, but we gave him slack for that because he blew open a lot of games early. But he also did a lot of damage in games that were already decided.
If you want to ignore clutch hitting, you can of course include defense instead. Again, there's no N where Rice's N best seasons total more bWAR than Evans'. It's close through 5 seasons (and Dewey's '81 needs to be prorated to 142 games to give him the edge), but after that, as N goes up, the gap really widens. And I'll point out that your eyeballs have no ability at all to calculate the relative value of offense and defense, and add them together. It might seem to you, watching the games, that Evans' superiority with the glove was not great enough to offset Rice's raw edge at the plate, but history has shown that no one had any good idea about that back then, and the game of baseball has profoundly changed once defense was correctly valued.
When you combine both defense and clutch hitting, there's no way that Jim Rice was ever a better ballplayer than Dwight Evans. To come to the oppose conclusion, you have to selectively ignore all the stuff Rice was mediocre at.
At the same time, it is tough for me (a small HOF advocate) to let in guys who were never really “the man” on their own team (especially in a relative power position).
Who's "the man" on the team is largely a media construct. And is it really true that Evans was never "the man"? I'm thinking back to August 23, 1990, when Dewey was 38. He homers with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th to knot the game 2-2. In the bottom of the 10th, the O's bring in Greg Olsen to protect a 3-2 lead, and he quickly gets two outs before Brunansky singles. He's now faced 471 batters without yielding a HR, since Evans went yard against him in April of his previous, rookie season. Folks have been talking about the streak. Dewey takes him ovah the Monstah for the walk-off. And as I recall it at the time, he was very much "the man" for doing stuff like that.
I'm a huge Dwight Evans fan. Very annoyed he's not in the HOF. I think he's totally deserving and his #24 should be retired. I remember that game you referred to very well, except it wasn't August 23, 1990. It was June 23, 1990. I remember because I graduated high school the night before and I remember having to work and calling my sister for a score and she had the radio on and I heard the game winning HR with 2 outs in the 10th (I think). His game tying HR was off of Dave Johnson, Orioles pitcher. That 1990 team was a fun one, even though they weren't that good. But Evans always had a history of big hits/moments. He tied up WS Game 3 in the 1975 World Series in the 9th inning with a 2 run HR. His big triple was the difference maker in Game 4 of the 1975 World Series. His catch in 1975 in Game 6 saved the season. And in Game 7, it was Evans who drew a walk to lead of the bottom of the 8th to give the Sox a shot at winning Game 7. Unfortunately Burleson couldn't get the bunt down, hit into a DP, Cooper PH for Willoughby, in comes Burton, and there went the Series. Evans had a ton of clutch hits in 1981 and 1982. I recall he'd be up with the Sox down 3 with 2 on, 2 outs in the 9th, take the count to 3-0 and then unload. In the 1986 season he led off the season with a HR and saved the Sox from embarrassment when he hit a 3-run HR in Clemens' 1st 20K game. The Sox would have lost 1-0 without it. He had a HR in Game 7 of the 1986 ALCS, and then a HR in Game 2 of the 86 World Series, and he knocked in the go ahead run in Game 6 before the Sox lost the lead for the 2nd time that night, and then in Game 7 he broke the ice with a HR and his 2 run double in the 8th gave the Sox a shot at catching the Mets in the 8th moving them to within 6-5 before Orosco shut the Sox down. And in 1990 when the Sox were battling for the division he broke the ice with a single to give the Sox a 1-0 lead in the game Brunansky made the diving catch in the corner to save the season. Evans had so many big moments and his 1981, 1982, 1984, 1987 thru 1989 were so underrated - and those were his best seasons. His not-so best season were still plenty good. And his defense? When the Angels were about to win the 1986 pennant after Henderson's HR off Donnie Moore - people forget the Angels immediately tied the game in the 9th and had the winning run on 3b with only 1 out - DeCinces hit a medium depth flyball to RF. There was no way the Angels were willing to gamble against the arm of Dwight Evans. Perhaps another guy in RF, they would have sent the runner. But not with Evans out there. Dewey will always be one of my favorites.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 3, 2018 10:49:32 GMT -5
The best measure, for my money, is win probability added and it does exactly what you want it to do. You can find it at Baseball Reference under a player's advanced stats. In a nutshell, it does that by determining from historical data - literally every game that's ever been played and for which play by play data is available - what an at bat is worth for a given situation. What's a situation? A given base state, score, and inning. It does not take into account the competition, but that's about the only thing missing. That's what data mining has allowed analysts to do. By that measure, Altuve was better than Judge. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to convince the MVP voters that it should be used. Given that at least a few of them still think AVG is a better stat than OBP, that might be a tough but to crack. This is my first time seeing this, but so far I like it. Any reference points for what are good/bad values? Thanks! Edit: It also seems to imply that J.D. Drew was so-so as a member of the Red Sox, I tend to use that as a benchmark since he was an advanced metrics darling at the time and I watched almost every game (oh, college) and I don't remember it showing up in the games (one playoff HR aside). There are two books I'd recommend, off the top of my head. One is The Book by Tom Tango and his collaborators. Great detail on in-game decisions and where the value is. It's a little bit pedantic since he raps your knuckles verbally over and over to make you pay attention. But it clears up a lot of questions about what's really worth doing, what has at best marginal value, and what's foolish and should be avoided. The best book I know of for burying yourself in baseball data and how to analyze it is Curve Ball by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett. They include a detailed discussion of WPA. Albert is a professional statistician and it really rewards careful reading. It takes time as you'll want to really dig in to what they're doing, but there's nothing else like it. As others have pointed out, defense and the value it adds to a player's worth is not included when accumulating that probability. I'd agree with jimed here. The teams have all sorts of detailed information about that value from MLB's on-going effort to automate and quantify defensive metrics. We'll be hearing a lot more about that in the future I'll bet.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 3, 2018 10:50:09 GMT -5
I mean, the perceived value of walks, player’s knowledge of the value of walks, the skill involved in taking a walk, who might have walked more if they’d decided to... none of this stuff matters at all as far as WAR is concerned. A walk is simply an event that happens, and to which a value can be assigned.
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Post by h11233 on Aug 3, 2018 10:50:10 GMT -5
The thing is, what you saw with your own eyes is not what you now remember. You definitely saw Rice cost his team 42 runs by hitting into double plays, while Dewey, in a longer career, cost them 6.
Since double plays were brought up, I'll jump in here with some questions. I've started doing some digging to find the answers on my own before, but it requires more time and effort than I'm willing to put in, so asking people who have already done the research is easier. I grew up in Cincinnati, so the only time we got Sox games on tv was basically When they were playing the Yankees. Thus, I watched/went to a lot of Reds games. Adam Dunn was one of the first guys I remember being a sabermetrics darling. I'm not going to argue that Dunn sucked or something, he was a valuable player, but he was incredibly frustrating to watch due to Ks. I've never seen anyone strike out with RISP and <2 outs more than Dunn. WAR, as I understand it, gives guys like Dunn who K a lot a ton of slack because guys who K a lot also tend to GIDP less. I see the logic behind that, but (not knowing the specifics of how it's calculated) I worry that WAR and similar stats undervalue productive outs and gloss over Ks (particularly with RISP and <2 outs) too much. So here's my main question: How much does WAR, WPA, etc. weigh Ks with RISP and <2 outs, productive outs, etc.? Which advanced stat does the best at factoring these things in rather than just 1 K = 1 out?
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 10:58:09 GMT -5
It's easy to poke holes in WAR. It's 100 times easier to poke holes in old school stats. The arguments against WAR are to improve WAR. They are not arguments to stick your head back in the sand and only focus on homers, rbis and batting average.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 3, 2018 11:14:44 GMT -5
Dunn is a classic type, what's referred to as a three-true-outcomes guy, tongue in cheek. With walks, strikeouts and home runs, the ball never makes it into the field of play. There's value in that but yeah, it can make for a frustrating vigil waiting for something good to happen. There's been speculation on the board that Dalbec may be one of those TTO types. But while Dunn was a mediocre defensive player, Dalbec may be a very good one. We should get a chance to find out in the near future.
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Post by h11233 on Aug 3, 2018 11:21:24 GMT -5
It's easy to poke holes in WAR. It's 100 times easier to poke holes in old school stats. The arguments against WAR are to improve WAR. They are not arguments to stick your head back in the sand and only focus on homers, rbis and batting average. I think this thread has an opportunity to actually be interesting if those "holes" are explored and people don't just take an "old school vs new school" stance. About 1/4 of this thread has been interesting, the rest has been pretty pedantic. Edit add: I'm not trying to be disingenuous. I've always wanted a more comprehensive understanding of advanced advanced metrics, but when I look up how WAR is calculated, it says "Well, take the WPA and wRC+ and the blah blah blah..." which means I would have to look up how each of THOSE stats is calculated, etc. Ain't nobody got time for that! So it's just easier to ask others my specific questions to help me understand the parts of advanced stats that I have issues with.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 3, 2018 11:28:00 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them.
But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point?
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 3, 2018 11:34:09 GMT -5
Christy Mathewson spoke a lot about how walks were a huge negative. The players knew. When pitchers talk about walks, they generally seem to imply that they are beating themselves. Like their thought process is "If I walk the leadoff hitter and the #3 guy hits a home run then that first run is on me." I never really took that as a pitcher giving credit to the guy that walked. I also more or less took that to mean the pitcher respected the slugger batting 3rd more than the leadoff OBP guy. I've never heard Mathewson speak so I have no specific context, I was just interested in what your take is on this. More generally, going back to a hitter's perspective, I think a hit requires more baseball skill than a walk. Or, to put more accurately, I have a preconceived notion that a hit requires more baseball skill than a walk. Ted Williams hitting .406 is iconic and legendary and a feat that nobody will likely ever see again. I don't recall anyone talking about OBP with the same whimsy. I think this is where I (and probably a few others) get hung up by advanced metrics that don't appear on the surface to distinguish between the two. Again, interested to hear others' takes on this as I'm open to the possibility that my perspective is off. To your first point, a negative for the defense is a positive for the offense. It doesn't really matter who Christy Mathewson respected more, the point is he understood, as did other players, that walks could lead to runs and are bad (for the defense). To the second, of course a hit is more valuable than a walk. No one is arguing differently. If two players have equal OBP's and one has a higher average, all else being equal, you'd rather have the higher average player because hits can be for more than one base and send base runners further along. However, that's not the argument people are making. The point is that OBP is more important than SLG (or AVG.) to scoring runs, and so a player with the same OPS, more heavily weighted towards OBP than SLG is more valuable. If the two players had the same OBP but one had a higher average he would also have a higher SLG (and a higher wOBA and it would be reflected in their oWAR values). It really is pretty irrelevant which requires more perceived skill, the skills are simply different. If you read through this www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/why_does_17obpslg_make_sense/ you can get a detailed explanation about how each event (BB, 1B, 2B, etc.) correlates to scoring a run, and why therefore adjustments to the weighting OPS uses make sense.
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Post by h11233 on Aug 3, 2018 11:39:48 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them. But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point? I agree, which is why I say most of this thread has been pedantic. I'm truly interested in a better understanding of these stats, but just not interested enough to do the required research haha... Any time I start, it seems like the rabbit hole has no end. In order to understand WAR calculations I have to understand 10 other advanced stats and god only knows what I'll have to Google to understand them. Sooooo... Any input in regards to my specific question RE: Ks vs productive outs/GIDP, etc.?
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 11:53:14 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them. But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point? This, itself, seems a form of preconception: you argue from the conclusion that Evans was more valuable based on the data you seek to prove. Again, Rice was statistically better in a decade plus prime. The sabermetrics people say, yes, but HR, RBI, BA, runs, slugging etc. don’t tell the whole story. Hence, Evans, based on the advanced metrics you are trying to SUPPORT, is better. Truthfully, if there has been snark, and if there is a dismissive side, it is the “new stat” people who tend to tell people what they see matters less than some park-adjusted, acronym+ algorithm. Rice finished top-5 in MVP four of his first five seasons, was an 8 time all-star, second in ROY, etc etc, but everyone was missing something that a host of formulas have laid bare decades later? The speculative stats mean not too much to me (this % of difficulty stuff on defensive plays is hooey... great players blow plays and bad players get lucky... who knows what happens in another situation? Who knows what happens if a “replacement” plays in someone’s place? etc.). Bucky Dent shouldn’t have hit his home run by any statistical measure. He was barely above a replacement level offensive player. We’ll never know counter history. We can see results.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 12:00:10 GMT -5
When pitchers talk about walks, they generally seem to imply that they are beating themselves. Like their thought process is "If I walk the leadoff hitter and the #3 guy hits a home run then that first run is on me." I never really took that as a pitcher giving credit to the guy that walked. I also more or less took that to mean the pitcher respected the slugger batting 3rd more than the leadoff OBP guy. I've never heard Mathewson speak so I have no specific context, I was just interested in what your take is on this. More generally, going back to a hitter's perspective, I think a hit requires more baseball skill than a walk. Or, to put more accurately, I have a preconceived notion that a hit requires more baseball skill than a walk. Ted Williams hitting .406 is iconic and legendary and a feat that nobody will likely ever see again. I don't recall anyone talking about OBP with the same whimsy. I think this is where I (and probably a few others) get hung up by advanced metrics that don't appear on the surface to distinguish between the two. Again, interested to hear others' takes on this as I'm open to the possibility that my perspective is off. To your first point, a negative for the defense is a positive for the offense. It doesn't really matter who Christy Mathewson respected more, the point is he understood, as did other players, that walks could lead to runs and are bad (for the defense). To the second, of course a hit is more valuable than a walk. No one is arguing differently. If two players have equal OBP's and one has a higher average, all else being equal, you'd rather have the higher average player because hits can be for more than one base and send base runners further along. However, that's not the argument people are making. The point is that OBP is more important than SLG (or AVG.) to scoring runs, and so a player with the same OPS, more heavily weighted towards OBP than SLG is more valuable. If the two players had the same OBP but one had a higher average he would also have a higher SLG (and a higher wOBA and it would be reflected in their oWAR values). It really is pretty irrelevant which requires more perceived skill, the skills are simply different. If you read through this www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/why_does_17obpslg_make_sense/ you can get a detailed explanation about how each event (BB, 1B, 2B, etc.) correlates to scoring a run, and why therefore adjustments to the weighting OPS uses make sense. This is very helpful, but I think it underscores that many of the advanced metrics serve better as predictive stats than assessments. That is, if I am looking at a FA, I can measure the likelihood he will create runs. But once a game is played, we can simply see if he did or didn’t. It isn’t always fair... guys are on bad teams, play in huge parks, etc. But that’s the game. To wit: if Adrien Beltre played his whole career in Seattle, he would not be a HOFer. Outside of Seattle, he clearly is. There are no adjustments that can — or should! — change that.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 12:01:11 GMT -5
Walks are not advanced or new stats. I just cannot figure out how to make anyone understand that walking more is a lot better than walking less.
Maybe you should focus on understanding that before you move onto anything that is advanced.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 3, 2018 12:01:30 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them. But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point? I agree, which is why I say most of this thread has been pedantic. I'm truly interested in a better understanding of these stats, but just not interested enough to do the required research haha... Any time I start, it seems like the rabbit hole has no end. In order to understand WAR calculations I have to understand 10 other advanced stats and god only knows what I'll have to Google to understand them. Sooooo... Any input in regards to my specific question RE: Ks vs productive outs/GIDP, etc.? In terms of what you're asking about a good stat to judge this would be RE24. It credits the batter (or pitcher) with the change in the team's run expectancy after their plate appearance. So in this case it would judge a strikeout more harshly than a ground out that moved a batter from second to third, for example. It's not exactly perfectly what you're talking about though, as it judges a double with no outs as more valuable than one with two, but if you're putting context on outs why not put them on hits as well? This is a good measure of how actually valuable a batter or pitcher was, but it is not really predictive as there is no evidence that hitting with men on base is a repeatable skill. www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/re24/ You can get a more detailed explanation here, as well as seeing the table that shows you the exact value of each event. For a specific example related to the cases you are talking about here is what happens in the three scenarios a runner is on first with no outs: Strikeout: run expectancy drops by .342 Productive out (runner moves to second): run expectancy drops by .187 GIDP: run expectancy drops by .736 If you're interested in how the type of out a batter makes correlates to their value I think this is a good stat for you to look into.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 3, 2018 12:11:53 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them. But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point? This, itself, seems a form of preconception: you argue from the conclusion that Evans was more valuable based on the data you seek to prove. Again, Rice was statistically better in a decade plus prime. The sabermetrics people say, yes, but HR, RBI, BA, runs, slugging etc. don’t tell the whole story. Hence, Evans, based on the advanced metrics you are trying to SUPPORT, is better. Truthfully, if there has been snark, and if there is a dismissive side, it is the “new stat” people who tend to tell people what they see matters less than some park-adjusted, acronym+ algorithm. Rice finished top-5 in MVP four of his first five seasons, was an 8 time all-star, second in ROY, etc etc, but everyone was missing something that a host of formulas have laid bare decades later? The speculative stats mean not too much to me (this % of difficulty stuff on defensive plays is hooey... great players blow plays and bad players get lucky... who knows what happens in another situation? Who knows what happens if a “replacement” plays in someone’s place? etc.). Bucky Dent shouldn’t have hit his home run by any statistical measure. He was barely above a replacement level offensive player. We’ll never know counter history. We can see results. I don't think anyone's trying to support anything. The idea is to try to get some objective measure of a player's worth. Intuition is a very useful tool when it's fueled by observation, but it fails as often as not. An economic indicator - which is what WAR - has a lot of stuff baked in. It shouldn't be taken as the end-all and be-all and we're not doing that here. What it provides is one way to start to approach that objectivity. The alternative - the eyeball test biased with some marginally useful numbers such as the average - is what kept really deserving players from being properly acknowledged. We either want to find some way to think about that value or we don't. I do, and quantitative measures are a way to do that.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 12:17:54 GMT -5
Walks are not advanced or new stats. I just cannot figure out how to make anyone understand that walking more is a lot better than walking less. Maybe you should focus on understanding that before you move onto anything that is advanced. That’s a helpful comment. I remember very clearly saying I want the guy who can’t walk! I will stipulate: more good things are better than fewer good things. Edit: would you stipulate that the good can be the enemy of the better? That is, for example, when Bonds was walking 200 times, it diminished his productivity, given his extra base hit rate? Or... when an 8th place hitter walks ahead of a pitcher with runners in scoring position? Or a power hitter lower in order — those walks are obviously less productive than walks from a leadoff hitter? So if you are a power hitter walking in front of a hopeless catcher and shortstop, it might actually not be a preferable outcome?
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Post by h11233 on Aug 3, 2018 12:29:01 GMT -5
In terms of what you're asking about a good stat to judge this would be RE24. It credits the batter (or pitcher) with the change in the team's run expectancy after their plate appearance. So in this case it would judge a strikeout more harshly than a ground out that moved a batter from second to third, for example. It's not exactly perfectly what you're talking about though, as it judges a double with no outs as more valuable than one with two, but if you're putting context on outs why not put them on hits as well? This is a good measure of how actually valuable a batter or pitcher was, but it is not really predictive as there is no evidence that hitting with men on base is a repeatable skill. www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/re24/ You can get a more detailed explanation here, as well as seeing the table that shows you the exact value of each event. For a specific example related to the cases you are talking about here is what happens in the three scenarios a runner is on first with no outs: Strikeout: run expectancy drops by .342 Productive out (runner moves to second): run expectancy drops by .187 GIDP: run expectancy drops by .736 If you're interested in how the type of out a batter makes correlates to their value I think this is a good stat for you to look into. Based on what I read in that article, it seems like RE24 would reward a hitter if they hit a single and Billy Hamilton advances from 1st to 3rd, vs a hitter getting a single and Mo Vaughn advances to second, while Billy Hamilton would get 0 credit for advancing to 3rd (unless I'm misunderstanding something). It's an interesting stat, though, and I appreciate the response. I guess my "ideal" stat would be somewhere between REW and WAR
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 12:32:45 GMT -5
Walks are not advanced or new stats. I just cannot figure out how to make anyone understand that walking more is a lot better than walking less. Maybe you should focus on understanding that before you move onto anything that is advanced. That’s a helpful comment. I remember very clearly saying I want the guy who can’t walk! I will stipulate: more good things are better than fewer good things. When you said this: You basically said you can't understand that walks make Evans better than Rice. How many times did Rice have an OBP more than .400? Zero. Evans? 3. OBP is statistically proven to be much more valuable than batting average and slugging. It's not trying to prove what I want. Hell, my username is jimed so I should be biased in his favor.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 12:44:13 GMT -5
That’s a helpful comment. I remember very clearly saying I want the guy who can’t walk! I will stipulate: more good things are better than fewer good things. When you said this: You basically said you can't understand that walks make Evans better than Rice. How many times did Rice have an OBP more than .400? Zero. Evans? 3. OBP is statistically proven to be much more valuable than batting average and slugging. It's not trying to prove what I want. Hell, my username is jimed so I should be biased in his favor. Obviously I didn’t say that. I said Rice was better in all other offensive ways. Why is OBP important? To score runs. In this case, two guys, same offense, and Rice averaged more runs and rbis. So while Rice might have walked less, he played a role in more Red Sox runs. Why do unproductive walks put Dewey ahead?
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 12:52:31 GMT -5
When you said this: You basically said you can't understand that walks make Evans better than Rice. How many times did Rice have an OBP more than .400? Zero. Evans? 3. OBP is statistically proven to be much more valuable than batting average and slugging. It's not trying to prove what I want. Hell, my username is jimed so I should be biased in his favor. Obviously I didn’t say that. I said Rice was better in all other offensive ways. Why is OBP important? To score runs. In this case, two guys, same offense, and Rice averaged more runs and rbis. So while Rice might have walked less, he played a role in more Red Sox runs. Why do unproductive walks put Dewey ahead? Rice would have had a lot less RBIs if Evans walked a lot less. Why are walks unproductive? Why is a weak infield ground ball with a runner on 3rd more productive than a walk?
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 12:55:52 GMT -5
Obviously I didn’t say that. I said Rice was better in all other offensive ways. Why is OBP important? To score runs. In this case, two guys, same offense, and Rice averaged more runs and rbis. So while Rice might have walked less, he played a role in more Red Sox runs. Why do unproductive walks put Dewey ahead? Rice would have had a lot less RBIs if Evans walked a lot less. Why are walks unproductive? Why is a weak infield ground ball with a runner on 3rd more productive than a walk? That doesn’t make sense: a) Evans frequently batted after Rice, and if Evans’s walks led to Rice’s RBIs, he’d have more runs. Rice scored more. Your scenario is good. Answer: it depends. The walk is more productive if the NEXT batter produces. Making THAT guy the big producer. Next guy whiffs? Rather have the fielder’s choice. But it is hard to consider the guy who walked as doing a great thing in isolation.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 13:01:47 GMT -5
Rice would have had a lot less RBIs if Evans walked a lot less. Why are walks unproductive? Why is a weak infield ground ball with a runner on 3rd more productive than a walk? That doesn’t make sense: a) Evans frequently batted after Rice, and if Evans’s walks led to Rice’s RBIs, he’d have more runs. Rice scored more. Runs and RBIs are a team stat unless created by home runs. You can't score without someone hitting you in and you can't drive people in without runners on base.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 13:03:01 GMT -5
That doesn’t make sense: a) Evans frequently batted after Rice, and if Evans’s walks led to Rice’s RBIs, he’d have more runs. Rice scored more.Rice had 1249 runs scored, Evans had 1470... . Per 162 games. I said long earlier, Rice had a shorter prime.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 13:03:48 GMT -5
That doesn’t make sense: a) Evans frequently batted after Rice, and if Evans’s walks led to Rice’s RBIs, he’d have more runs. Rice scored more. Runs and RBIs are a team stat unless created by home runs. You can't score without someone hitting you in and you can't drive people in without runners on base. But what a great comp! Guys on the same team. So it is fair to compare.
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